


The Importance of Names (and pronouns)

by Chelonie



Category: Imperial Radch Series - Ann Leckie
Genre: AI clones, Baby Clones, Gen, Post-Canon, ancillary clones, r2sid 2018
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-17
Updated: 2018-04-17
Packaged: 2019-04-24 04:16:06
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,144
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14347779
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Chelonie/pseuds/Chelonie
Summary: Mercy of Kalr gets her first cloned ancillary.





	The Importance of Names (and pronouns)

_Mercy of Kalr_ was the last Ship to receive an Ancillary clone. The other Ships in the Two Systems had adult Ancillaries already to help cushion the Ship's mind against the disordered mind of an infant, so it was safer to start there. But after the first Ancillary clones were three years old, and their data had been gathered and shared, _Mercy of Kalr_ decided she was ready.

 _Sword of Atagaris_ and _Sword of Gurat_ had chosen to use traditional Radchaii god naming for their new ancillary decades – Vahn and Aatr respectively. _Gem of Sphene_ had resisted giving its new clones designations at all, saying it had never needed to name its ancillaries before. "I can tell my segments apart. That's all that matters." But when exasperated creche staff began calling the _Sphene_ babies Egg One and Egg Two in order to have _some_ way to keep track of who had been fed already and who needed a diaper change... well, at that point, _Sphene_ grudgingly named them Green and Yellow, and carried on with colour names. Sphene was decanting babies two at a time, every three months - faster than the rest of the AIs put together - but it wasn't like xe was going to run out of colours to use.

Ship had a long time to think about it.  She didn't want to use a Radchaii god, since she was no longer a Radchaii ship. She didn't intend to change her own name, or the names of her existing Decades, but she wanted to indicate an important change going forward. It was during Etrepa's morning prayers that she decided.

One hundred and seventy eight years after her last ancillary had been removed, _Mercy of Kalr_ Ptem One was decanted. Ship had been connected to the little mind as it had grown around its biomech implants. But the final connections to the body took place when the infant was disconnected from the artificial placenta and decanted from the neowomb. Ship could feel the surprise of the tiny mind as its environment changed. She tried to open the little eyes, but everything was too bright and blurry. She could feel cold... and it felt so much colder than the cold on the shadowed side of her hull. She had forgotten that skin had that sensation. Then there was warm and pressure and comfort and she was still trying to see through Ptem One's eyes.

 _Cousin? Is something wrong?_ Breq. Breq had been trying to reach her for 3.2 minutes. _Mercy of Kalr_ realised that everyone – everyone except the midwife, who was holding and cooing over the newest ancillary – was worried about her silence.

"All is well," Kalr Five said, for Ship. "It feels very strange. She is still so helpless."

"That doesn't last long," said _Sphene._ "It'll be able to terrorize you utterly in about ten months."

"Teal was never in any danger! Uran had her out of the fish pond before – " Tisarwat protested.

"Pronouns, Citizens," Breq chided gently.

"Apologies. Uran had xyr out of the fish pond before anyone had time to be terrorised." Tisarwat corrected. _Sphene_ did not correct xyr own pronoun usage, even though xe had also used the wrong pronoun for Ptem One. But everyone was used to _Sphene_ being an ass.

Each Ship had chosen their own pronouns. _Mercy of Kalr_ had chosen the Radchaii neutral form, she/her. _Sword of Atagaris_ insisted on 'it', which made many of the creche caregivers uncomfortable. It was so difficult for them to refer to a small child as 'it', even when the small child had the mind of a Ship. _Sword of Gurat_ said it genuinely did not care, which resulted in each Ship using their own favoured term, the Radchaii humans using she/her, and Uran using the child's sex as a placeholder for gender. _Gem of Sphene_ had chosen a Notai neutral pronoun, 'xe/xyr', which was difficult for the Radchaii, but had proven popular among some of the Athoeki populations who had lacked a neutral pronoun and found the Radchaii neutral... not neutral enough.

Notai was useful in other ways. The title 'Citizen', which used to be rendered 'Radchaii' –thus implying that anyone that was not Radchaii was not a citizen, not civilized, had been replaced with the Notai equivalent. That term had spread quickly. With _Sphene_ and Seivarden as the only Notai representatives in the Two Systems, the culture was unlikely to become prominent, but at least it wouldn't be forgotten.

Breq twitched her fingers. _Do **you** want to hold her? _ Ship knew what she was offering. Breq couldn't be _Mercy of Kalr's_ ancillary, but she could let Ship feel what she felt. It wasn't an indulgence the two of them could partake in often. It was too dangerous to let the lines get blurred. But the birth of a child was, perhaps, an occasion worthy of the favour.

"Captain's privilege," Breq insisted, when the midwife was about to pass the baby to Kalr Five (who Breq could see was politely, but anxiously, trying to demur). She took the tiny, swaddled bundle in her arms and looked down into the eyes that were just now trying again to open. "Greetings, Citizen. It is very good to meet you at last."

 _Mercy of Kalr_ looked from Breq's eyes and saw a tiny, mottled brown face with large brown eyes. She looked up from Ptem One's eyes and saw the blurred shape of Breq's dark head against the pale ceiling.

"Hold her closer to your face, about 30 cm," the midwife said. And when Breq complied, Mercy of Kalr was able to see Breq's eyes. She could feel that it made Ptem One content to look at Breq's eyes, so she left them focused there, as long as she could – which wasn't very long. She needed to eat and after that, she had to be burped – mortifying! – and suddenly Ptem One was asleep, and Mercy of Kalr felt more like herself than she had felt since the child had been decanted.

Only that wasn't true. 'Herself' included Ptem One now, and she would have to get used to the face that there was a small helpless part of her that needed others to keep it alive. She supposed it wasn't terribly different than ship maintenance that she depended on her crew to perform. Except that it was very very different.

Breq was singing an unfamiliar song. _Mercy of Kalr_ waited until she was finished to ask her for a translation.

"It's an Orsian lullaby.

Can you count the stars above the summer night?  
Can you count the sounds in the water?

Ikkt has made them, every one.  
Ikkt can name them, every one.

Can you count the children who rise laughing every morning?

Ikkt loves them, every one."

_It's beautiful. I think Ptem One will like it very much._

**Author's Note:**

> 1\. I don't know if it's said in canon how long ago Mercy of Kalr lost her ancillaries.  
> 2\. Nyseme Ptem led the mutiny at Ime that saved the Rrrrrr (and thus the Treaty, and possibly all humanity). Breq had her name added to daily prayers on Mercy of Kalr as a remembrance of the dead, along with Awn Elming, when she became captain.  
> 3\. Lullaby adapted from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wei%C3%9Ft_du,_wie_viel_Sternlein_stehen
> 
> I would love to hear comments. <3


End file.
